Do you have a coaching philosophy? Have you put pen to paper and actually developed your coaching philosophy? If you have, fantastic, great start. Are you upholding your coaching philosophy throughout the season?

For those of you that asked, “what’s a coaching philosophy?’ I’m glad you asked. A coaching philosophy reflects the standards you set for yourself and your team and it gives birth to your coaching values and belief. Before you decide to call yourself a soccer coach, make sure you’ve established your coaching philosophy.

Calling yourself a coach without a coaching philosophy is like driving a car without a license or embarking on a road trip without your trusty melways. The importance of a coaching philosophy is that it keeps you on track when things go wrong and helps keep the angry parents at a safe distance during the season.

But just a word of warning, even with a coaching philosophy penciled in and firmly placed, this does not guarantee you anything as a coach. The difficulty begins when you need to enforce it or adhere to it. Let’s use some examples to illustrate these difficulties shall we….

A few disgruntled parents approach you and question why the team is not winning more games. You quickly refer to your philosophy that states that winning is not as important as player development while you simultaneously wipe the sweat off your forehead.

John’s dad questions why the lesser skilled kids are receiving as much playing time as the team’s best players. You refer back to your philosophy that states that all players will receive the same amount of playing time irrespective of their abilities.

The presence of your coaching philosophy eliminates any surprises throughout the season. Explaining your soccer philosophy to the parents before the season commences eliminates any unnecessary headaches and provides answers to most questions that might arise during the season.

Your coaching philosophy is extremely important. Don’t just put pen to paper, really concentrate and put the necessary time in. In the long run, your coaching philosophy will reflect not only who you are as a coach, but also as a person. Lead your players in the right direction and instill values and beliefs that you want your own children to have. If you can accomplish this, your team will be champions irrespective of their win-loss ratio. Put things in perspective, coaching soccer at junior level is not the bigger picture is it?

If I was coaching, my philosophy would read,

The coaching staff of Soccer Mastermind FC understand that your children play soccer because it’s fun.

Here at Soccer Mastermind FC, we never forget that the game of soccer is just that, a game. It’s not about the win-loss ratio and its definitely not about the trophies. It’s all about enjoying the game while simultaneously learning and developing soccer and life skills.

It’s about sharing and playing in different positions so that all the players learn the necessary skills. It’s about receiving equal playing time irrespective of playing ability.

It’s about learning the game through a variety of fun games, where players have as much contact with the ball as possible and develop and learn at their own pace without pressure.

Parents are involved and encouraged to applaud, praise and show their appreciation while fetching the balls.

If parents are given this at the start of the season and agree to it, everyone involved will have a great season irrespective of the league ladder.

Before you create your training session, you need to take into account the players you will be coaching. Player’s age and capabilities are extremely important factors that need to be considered. However, most sessions should have the following structure.

Before you can commence any training session, you need to allow the players to warm up and stretch. This will allow the players to increase their heart rate and prepare their muscles for training. Also allow some time for the players to stretch before commencing the heavier loads of the session. The extra time will also allow your players to get focused on the session.

Once your players have warmed up and stretched, you can proceed with the session. Depending on the drill, you should personally show them a simple demonstration of the drill. That’s right, show them. If you can’t give a simple demonstration of a new drill or skill, should you be coaching? How do you expect young kids or players to perform the drill if you can’t? Is your training session suitable or too advanced?

Always try and make your drills fun and entertaining. Train hard but make sure all your players are smiling and enjoying themselves. Also provide adequate breaks between drills to allow for drinks and player feedback. Most of the times the players will let you know if the session or drill is too easy or too hard. At the end of the day you’re not Guus Hiddink are you? So listen up and try and understand the youth and respond accordingly.

• Once you’ve completed the technical side of training, always remember to try and incorporate the new skills learnt in a game situation. Always try and end the session with a small sided game that will allow your players to experiment with their new found skills.
• Never make your training sessions or plans too rigid. Your sessions need flexibility because some players might not be able to adapt to the new drills. Can you tell me what usually happens on those cold winter nights? That’s right! Half your team will not attend so you always need Plan B.
• Have you ever heard the saying, “variety is the spice of life”? Keep training interesting by mixing it up and using different variations of the same drill. By changing things you keep your training sessions fresh and eliminate players becoming complacent. Keeping your players on their toes and continually learning will guarantee you a hassle free and mischief free session. If you want trouble and problematic players make the training sessions boring and allow for 5 minutes. It’s your choice.
• The greatest mistake you can make as a youth coach is to starve them of the ball. Your role is to teach by showing and allowing your players to practice. Don’t preach or lecture them otherwise you might as well send them to school. But most importantly, allow your players to play without you trying to coach every second of the play. Also remember that more doesn’t necessarily equate to better. Don’t pack too much into your training sessions and concentrate on a few fundamentals at a time.

Okay, let’s use a scenario to illustrate the next point. You’ve carefully planned the next training session and you feel that it will serve your team well. Training begins and you can clearly see that your session is not productive. What do you do next? Most youth coaches will persist and try and enforce the session. After all the coach knows best, right? It’s not brain surgery, don’t preserve a plan or session that isn’t working. So the question still stands, “what do you do next Guus?”

The fact that you’ve planned the session doesn’t necessarily make it a good one. Always make sure you have Plan B and even Plan C. By observing with your ego-free hat on, the session assesses itself. Can you honestly judge yourself and your coaching abilities? I don’t think so! If you asked me to judge my own coaching abilities I wouldn’t hesitate to tell you that I’m the best. See what I mean.

Have you stopped laughing yet?

Another important aspect of youth coaching is respect. Treat all your players with respect! I don’t care if his the worst player in the world or the most frustrating. If you cannot guarantee respect as a minimum you have no right to coach. As far as I’m concerned you shouldn’t even be allowed on the green pastures to watch. Enough said.

Last but not least, don’t train your team on your own. Always get the services of an assistant. This doesn’t imply that your not good enough, but it sure is nice having those extra set of eyes, don’t you think?

The best opportunities to provide feedback to players is during training, before a match, half time, after a game and to some extent during a game. Although most players can improve by themselves through repetitive training and practice, the rate of improvement can be significantly increased by a quality coach.

The objective of most coaches is three-fold,

• Obviously to win games and silverware.
• To improve the overall performance of his team by improving and increasing the rate of development of the individual players.
• And to impose his style of play, ideas and tactics on the individual players that should effectively increase the overall performance of the team.

For a coach to be sucessful he must be able to give clear, concise, specific and positive feedback (encouragement) to allow the players to mould into the system he is trying to utilise. Bad coaches or ineffective ones have little impact in the overall performance of the team. Signs that a coach is being ineffective range from,

• Inconsistent performances and a low win/loss ratio.
• A lack of team cohesion.
• And relying heavily on certain individuals to get results.

The best place to provide positive feedback is during training sessions. The best coaches in the world have their own system and style of play. The system is addressed to the players and then the coach will inevitable sit and watch the overall function/performance of the team. By watching from a distance the coach can evaluate and observe whether the players understand the objectives of the team. From a distance, the coach can see if any players look confused or are taking up the wrong positions. By observing, thats right, just by watching you can see where problems might arise in your system. This first step has nothing to do with coaching but involves the use of sight to observe. Pretty simple right.

Observation also allows you to replicate and enforce the system of play. Once the coach is satisfied with the sequence of play and style, he can then proceed to give feedback and make the required corrections.

When coaching at any level, the sequence of feedback is crucial. Feedback and corrections should be made in this sequence,

• Make sure the team is playing your system and have correct shape.
• Address the style of play and the movement of the ball.
• Last but not least, correct the decisions on the ball.

If the sequence is confusing, let’s break it down a little with some real life examples. Your the coach and your observing your team in a practice match. You’ve just witnessed a bad pass from one of your players. What do you do? How do you react? From my own experience, the majority of coaches would either stop play to address the poor decision or simply yell out and threaten to take off the player if the mistake happened again. Does this sound familiar?

It’s ludicrous and pointless to address the bad passing decision of one player if the team shape was incorrect to begin with. If the shape of the team is incorrect, then the decision on the ball is irrelevant. Coaches need to observe the positions of all the players in the team, especially the ones that are not in direct contact with the ball. Have they taken up the correct position? Are they supporting the ball? Are they providing cover? Once you get the shape right, the player on the ball will have better support and a variety of passing options that will allow the player in possession to make the correct pass or decision. Makes sense doesn’t it?

Once the shape is correct and your players understand your system, you must focus on the behaviour of the individual players. Are players demanding the ball? Are they positioned correctly? Are players making the correct runs to recieve the ball? Are you implementing the counter attack and so on.

Although all this sounds easy in theory, its quite challenging to replicate in real life. But once you’re happy with the shape and movement off the ball, you can then address decisions on the ball. Are players dribbling, passing, shooting or crossing at the right times? Are they making the correct passing decisions? Do certain individuals see all the available options? Only when you get the shape and formation/style right can you address individual mistakes.

So lets repeat the 3 steps to coaching.

1. Establish and enfore your shape.
2. Establish a style of play, movement of the ball.
3. Correct individual mistakes or decisions on the ball.

The best coaches just don’t tell players what to do. They explain  why they are implementing this formation or tactic. The main objective of coaching is to make your players less dependant on you, the coach.

To create players that respond to situations and adopt your style of play and become problem solvers based on your tactics. At the end of the day you do not want 11 Robots but 11 players that will adopt and uphold your playing style.

Now that you’ve come to the end of this post, you might sit back and disagree that coaching only involves these 3 steps. Basically it doesn’t. But the above is the advice that Sir Alex Ferguson gave at a coaching clinic. That’s right Sir Alex Ferguson. One of, if not the best soccer coach in the world. Get these 3 steps right and the rest will fall into place.

Let me address one more thing before I go,

If the coaching feedback at the end of the season is the same as it was at the start of the season, then you have failed as a coach in developing a team. Think about it!